Eric W. Brown is RainbowDragonEyes to the chiptune world, drummer for Inferi and Destroy Destroy Destroy to the metal world, and elsewhere he can be found by the handle iheartdoublebass. From this twisted mind comes a new musical entity known as Magic Hammer. The debut album Most Extreme Ultimate Thunder melds rave-worthy happy hardcore with furious death-metal, in an explosive style they call "extreme dance music". The album morphs from rainbow candy-pop into epic metal riffs, often over the course of a single song or a series of fluid seconds, like an energy drink in musical form.

Not exactly what comes to mind when thinking of Nashville, home to the Grand Ole Opery, the Country Music Hall of Fame, karaoke bars and singer-songwriters. The "Athens of the South" is home to a thriving independent music scene, with top-notch garage/psych rock like Jeffrey Novak's Cheap Time, and Jeff the Brotherhood's Infinity Cat label (home to the prolific soft-punk Pujol and retro teens The Looking Glass). Some good stuff's a-brewing, but The Nashville Scene remains completely "befuddled" by Magic Hammer.

"I'm basically the antithesis of the current music scene in Nashville," Eric told me in a recent gchat. He seems to take pride in the fact and solace in the DIY ethos. Magic Hammer is his beast; he's the self-appointed CEO For Life, but he has managed to find an arsenal of likemindeds to bring Most Extreme Ultimate Thunder to life. You can catch Magic Hammer and RainbowDragonEyes live this Friday night, in a live stream from East Nashville 5spot, online at ragenotrave.com. RageNotRave is Eric's "company slash empire," and the free concert/stream is billed as a Nashville 8bit and explosion showcase (more info)

Two tracks from Magic Hammer's debut can be found here on the FMA, and Eric reports that a fresh batch of CDs is at-the-ready (the first were lost to Nashville's recent flooding disaster), available at magichammermusic.com/